Red, Black & Blue

Michelle Obama’s eyeroll towards John Boehner becomes viral sensation

First Lady Michelle Obama rolled her eyes at House Speaker John Boehner at the legislative inauguration luncheon Monday. Although Boehner’s joke fell flat with Michelle Obama, the president, at least, shared a few laughs. Barack Obama and Boehner have been locked in legislative battles over health care, the fiscal cliff and, most recently, raising the debt ceiling.

Larry Wenig, a lip reading expert, recently appeared on CBS’ Inside Edition and claimed the Boehner comment which drew the first lady’s ire was a joke about whether the president had enjoyed a cigarette that day.

The footage has since spread rapidly on social networking sites with viewers questioning on what prompted the first lady’s eyerolling reaction.

‘Shade throwing,’ as the blogger refers to in his post is defined as “to take a superior attitude; to criticize demean, or insult” according to Grant Barrett from A Way with Words.

The president later stood up to speak at the luncheon and joked about the relationship between his wife and Boehner.

“Michelle and the Speaker of the House came to a meeting of the minds that I may be delaying the proceedings too much,” Obama said. “And so I’m just going to be extraordinarily brief and say thank you.”

The infamous “eyeroll” since has become internet meme overnight, with Mattyrab’s video shared over 7,000 times on Tumblr and the YouTube video titled, “Watch Michelle Obama Throw World Historical Shade at John Boehner,” viewed over 2 million times as of yesterday.

The YouTube video has even received more views than the New York Times‘ YouTube post of President Barack Obama’s Inauguration speech (398,000 views).

“None of this holds a candle to our gurl Michelle Obama – and apparently, her supreme ability to throw subtle-yet-fierce B***FACE when warranted! [sic]” quipped celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton. “Now please sit down, get comfortable, and re-live all of the glory of FLOTUS clearly not taking too kindly to Speaker of the House’s John Boehner during the post-inauguration luncheon!”

Various blog posts have emerged accompanied with the GIF or video that commends the first lady for successfully dissing the Speaker of the House.

“There will also no doubt be many more opportunities for the now-infamous Michelle Obama eye roll to be directed at Speaker John Boehner and maybe even at her own hubby now and then; if not in reality, then through the glorious use of memes,” Jennifer Waite, from the Examiner, explains.

Both Obama and Boehner have been caught in a legislative gridlock for the past few months over a variety of issues including the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling.

Watch the video of the encounter between Boehner and Michelle Obama above.